


let us requite for our ghosts

by Tobi_Black



Series: Let Us 'verse [6]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Clone Rebellion, Gen, Order 66, Post-Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 22:42:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: Kanan had once another name, another life.Caleb Dume had been a Jedi Padawan, with a Master, and had considered Clone Troopers friends.Kanan had none of that. He'd created another life with another name for himself out of the ashes of the old.A new family had never been part of the plan.





	1. Chapter 1

**19 BBY**

Caleb rarely left his Master’s side, even all despite the war raging through the Republic, not from the moment she came back to the Temple and choose _him_ – no other Initiate – as _her_ Padawan.

His Master was not on battlefields often, and even told him that others could easily take her place, because she would not endanger him more than necessary as her Padawan in this war. That as her Padawan, he would inevitably see combat, because she did work in the field on a regular basis, but he did not need to see more of the frontlines than he would when the war was officially over and they returned to the war-ravaged planets to help.

He hadn’t challenged her then, because he’d still been euphoric that he’d been picked, with only months left until he was thirteen and how even with war creating more Padawan-Master pairs, he had remained in the Temple. But he’d still been a little jealous to hear of how the war had begun and Senior Padawan Skywalker had been right there in the frontlines, knighted and then handed one of the three Attack Battalions, and given a Padawan of his own. A little jealous of Ahsoka and how she’d been _assigned_ and soon become a true Padawan-Master pair, with it clear that it was only how if not for the war, Skywalker would have never gotten a Padawan otherwise, but he _would_ have _chosen_ Ahsoka anyway.

It wasn’t his Master’s choice when they were forced back into the war, and he was dragged in at her side less than a week after their bond had asserted itself.

He’d been shy at meeting the clones assigned to her, but her Commander knelt to his level, took off his helmet and looked at his Master with a small smile, “So you got yourself a shiny cadet, General?”.

She’d laughed, and her amusement had echoed in the Force and through their bond, before she’d lightly tugged on his new and tiny padawan braid, “Basically.”

Then the clone had turned that small smile his way, eyes crinkling up a little, “What’s your name, Padawan? I’m Grey.”

That had been the first time he’d met a clone, and not just heard of them or seen them at a distance.

~

He was Master Billiba’s Padawan only for a few months when suddenly things changed.

For the worse.

They’d been returning to the Temple after a simple mission, when Grey had hung back a bit with the men behind them, and answered a comm. He hadn’t heard what had been said, but he saw how Grey went rigid, stiff, then without warning, drew his blaster and aimed directly at his Master’s back.

His panic and confusion soaring through their bond had her turning to him, “Caleb-”

But it had been too late, as she got hit in her arm anyway. She’d been stunned for a moment, then another of the clones had fired and her side was hit.

Another blaster had gone off, aimed at him.

His Master managed to get her lightsaber up and in front of him, deflecting it, and the following shots.

He backed up a step, looking at Grey, whose helmet was on and nothing about him had the friendliness he’d come to expect when the clone was looking at them.

It wouldn’t be until much later that he’d be forced to remember that there had also been no menace, no hostile intent – and that had been what had surprised them, had scared him.

Master Billiba had backed up a step, shifting in front of him, deflecting blaster shot after blaster shot, “Caleb, run and don’t look back when I tell you to.”

One shot got through, hitting in her stomach.

He reached for her, but stopped himself when she made herself straighten and deflect the next three shots.

“Caleb, run _now!_ ”

He didn’t look back.


	2. Chapter 2

Caleb had been hiding in the city’s shadows, in the depths of Coruscant, still in the shadow of the Temple, hoping and praying to the Force that his Master would join him soon, when he felt it.

He felt his Master die.

Most assuredly, at the hands of the clones she’d loved.

The bond was new but rooted well.

It ripped and tore, and he screamed. He cried.

He tried to reach for the space in his head that had become his Master’s.

The emptiness dragged him into the dark and still he called for his Master.

~

The day his Depa Billiba died was the day that Caleb Dume ceased to exist.

He went to cut off his padawan braid, because he wasn’t a padawan anymore.

He went to unbraid it, because he couldn’t find it in himself to cut it himself, that was his- _her_ right but _she_ was dead and he could still feel the deaths of so many Jedi echoing in the Force with each passing moment and none else would soon be left to cut it for _her_.

He had to stop and cry for the grief Caleb Dume felt and that _he_ had to put behind him to survive.

And he _would_ survive. _She_ had died for him to survive.

Then he cut the braid off, stuffed it in a bag along with his lightsaber, and stowed away on the first shuttle he could get off-world.

He thought of names he could take on the way, as he bounced from one ship to another, refusing to use the Force more than necessary to go unnoticed.

Nothing felt right.

The clones had rites and ways associated with Naming.

It felt _wrong_ to pick a name at random.

But he couldn’t do it their way – _they_ had **betrayed** _her_ , **killed** _her_.

He was all the way to the Outer Rim before he settled on a name.


	3. Chapter 3

**9 BBY**

He had learned to be a good smuggler in the ten years after the Rise of the Empire.

He wasn’t the best – a lot of the way of life was unnatural to everything he’d learned in the Temple in another life, but he’d spent nearly as much of his life outside it as he’d spent his life in it so he’d adapted.

It had been scary how fast he’d adapted to using a blaster, particularly when it still haunted his dreams of how his Master must have died, and all he could think when he saw one was of how many shots it had taken her to fall. But he had, because no weapon was suspicious, and a bladed knife had been too much blood.

And only once had he wielded a vibroblade in place of his ‘saber.

It had nearly gotten him caught.

‘Troopers had seemed to stream out of every place in the market he’d been forced to draw it after a deal gone bad.

Ten years on, he’d still frozen for a moment at the sight of familiar white armor and was torn between Force-throwing them back until they were smears on the walls – and grasping at their subdued Force signatures to see if any of them were _familiar_.

That had been when he’d met a green-skinned Twi’lek woman who had saved his life.

She’d shot her way out of his fight, dragging him behind as she ran for a ship, yelling at him to shoot the bucket-heads down with the blaster she threw at his head while she got her baby started.

He might have fallen a bit in love with her then.

Particularly when she took them to hyper-speed then turned around once they were gone from the planet he’d learned then forgotten the name for, and had pushed him gently but firmly back and demanded to see where he’d gotten shot.

He hadn’t realized he’d even gotten hurt before she’d said something, still running high with adrenaline from their near-death.

She’d been smiling even as she’d gotten closer, pulled out some old-school bandages and _tightened_ them over his wound to at least stop his bleeding before he’d noticed she’d already taken care of it.

“I’m Hera. And who would you be, pretty boy?”

He’d laughed – and known that he would love her if only she allowed it, rules of attachment be damned.

“Call me Kanan.”


	4. Chapter 4

**6 BBY**

Hera was the best pilot in the galaxy as far as he was concerned, and the best co-leader he could have ever asked for even if it had been just the two of them.

They’d met and split, then met again and again for almost a year before they’d both realized that the jobs that he’d been taking hadn’t been smuggling just for money, but to help those suffering under the Empire’s regime, and that she’d been doing the same if more to aid the actual fighting. Then she’d found him between jobs and asked if he’d been looking for a crew.

If asked, he would have claimed it was because his last ship had just been destroyed by TIE fighters and she was bringing a ship of her own to the partnership. Because he had sworn off any sort of regular partnership and anyone who knew him, knew that, so he worked one-man jobs or one-off jobs where he’d combined forces with one acquaintance or another.

Hera proved to be everything he hadn’t known he’d been looking for.

He tried to push her away that first month, but she’d taken his bantha-shit for all of five minutes before calling him on it.

He could have done without her crazy droid though. Chooper was more than a few screws short and zap-happy.

Then they took a job that had turned in a kriffing kark-up, and the two of them hadn’t been enough.

Hera had been taken prisoner, and in the time, it took for him to track down the transport she’d been taken in and infiltrating the ‘trooper base – all of three hours – she’d made a friend with a prisoner there.

The Lasat’s name was Zeb, short for Garazeb Orrelios.

Zeb was gruff and rough around the edges, but he took as little bantha-shit as Hera had and was kind-hearted once _his_ walls fell some when they weren’t scared away.

With three of them – four if they counted Chopper, and they tried not to, for everyone else’s sake because Chopper already zapped friends, setting him on their enemies, even the Empire, would be cruel – they were able to take bigger jobs. Risker, but better pay-days.

Then Zeb came back with somebody limp on his back.

The sight of Mandalorian armor, the likes of which he hadn’t seen since Order 66, froze him.

Hera moved and had helped Zeb get the _girl_ off his back, helmet off to find the girl was awake, if barely, but had taken a blaster shot to the chest that the armor had deflected _mostly_ but her ribs were bruised badly. He had hung back as Hera had fixed the girl up as much as they could, and gotten the story of _why_ Zeb had come back with her.

Apparently, she’d been going after a bounty on the guy they were stealing from, and instead of calling Zeb out, had actually helped him when he’d been spotted and gotten shot for her trouble by ‘troopers drawn by the commotion.

He’d grumbled but allowed her to stay until she could breathe without wincing.

Before he’d realized it though, she hadn’t left and had joined them on several jobs, her explosives expertise coming in handy more than once for quick exits.


	5. Chapter 5

**5 BBY**

It had taken them a year together before Zeb or Sabine would bring a job to the discussion, but most jobs either Kanan found or Hera got from her contacts.

This time, it was Hera that had them go to Lothal about a pick-up and escort.

It wasn’t their usual gig, but Zeb had gotten into a rather nasty fight with ‘troopers last job that had left them all rather bruised and beat up and so they weren’t up to anything like their usual.

It had been three days and Hera had taken to sending a message an hour to whoever had gotten them the job – Hera had been cagey the first few times, but when he’d gotten hurt on one of their first jobs for this person when it had been just them, she’d told him her contact was a woman called Fulcrum – trying to get confirmation it was still on or if they’d been burned and if they needed to get out of there ASAP.

Zeb had been pushing them to leave, kark this job, and they’d been doing just that when Fulcrum got back to Hera about unexpected delays with their cargo and that it would be a couple of weeks.

So instead of going far, because if they weren’t burned, there were several jobs they could take here on Lothal that would be profitable to their continuing _kark-the-Empire_ philosophy.

There were going to be some blasters in Capital City that were just begging to be stolen in a few days.


End file.
